


Frientimacy

by PhunkyBrewster



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 20:43:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3182483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhunkyBrewster/pseuds/PhunkyBrewster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows the exact moment they became friends. A birthday one-shot dedicated to HelenVanPattersonPatton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frientimacy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HelenVanPattersonPatton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelenVanPattersonPatton/gifts).



He didn’t like the idea of their friendship following some sort of pre-conceived formula.

Danny always maintained a certain fondness of the possibility that their pairing had been born of chaos and impossibility; that two people destined to be enemies managed to triumph against cosmic adversity. For a man that generally liked to live within the law, Mindy was the only thing in his life that represented a benevolent kind of defiance. It was nice to be able to look at their camaraderie, shrug, and say ‘against all odds, I suppose’ with a private smile.

He assumed that Mindy would have seen the romance in such a notion and ran with it. What he managed to sometimes forget, however, was that Mindy, despite her starry-eyed recounts of destiny and magic, was still a woman of science. The only thing she liked more than the possibility of fate was that there was a formula or firm explanation for everything.

It would explain how Mindy’s conclusion that an article that she found online perfectly encapsulated the five stages of their friendship could simultaneously thrill her and make him entirely suspicious.

“This has our friendship down to a very eerie T, Danny,” she insisted as she flopped onto the doctor’s lounge couch, waving her phone at him as she settled next to him. “We went through all of these stages and now look at us!”

Danny rolled his eyes and muted he television. “You believe anything you find on the internet, don’t you?”

“Can you maybe listen to the evidence before you dismiss it?”

Hands raised in surrender, Danny replied, “Proceed, council.”

“Okay.” She tucked a leg under her body and dragged a finger across her screen until she found the page she was looking for. “So this says that stage one is ‘Curiosity-Slash-Suspicion.’ For us that’s, like, the first three years of knowing each other.”

“Who says I’m not still suspicious of you?” Danny joked, which earned him a punch to the thigh and a poorly hidden snicker.

“The second stage,” Mindy continued, her voice raised and determined, “is the exploratory stage, where you spend time together. We work with each other every day, how much more together-time could we really ask for?”

He considered the point for a moment. It was hard to argue. Between time spent at the office, their commute to and from the practice, and easy times in the lounge like this, their work did bring them together more than anyone else he knew, including the other partners.

“From the exploratory stage breeds stage three: familiarity. We learned each other’s quirks and responses, our schedules…it made it less weird to spend time with each other outside of the office, like during lunch or how we’d shop together whenever there was an office party –“

“Or when you’d ask me to come over to build your entertainment center,” Danny offered smugly.

“Right!”

“Or when you’d ask me to come over and assemble bunk beds.”

“Uh, way to rewrite history, dude. I asked Morgan for his help and you nosed your way in. Maybe it was our established familiarity,” she waved her phone for emphasis, as if it cemented her point, “that made you want to reach out and help me!”

“Jesus,” Danny mumbled before chuckling lowly at her enthusiasm. “Whatever, what’s stage four?”

She smiled brightly. “It’s my favorite stage as well as your worst nightmare: vulnerability.”

“Blech.”

“It’s the sweetest,” she countered resolutely. “As evidenced by you staying with me during the Christmas party.”

“Which one? The one with you and Josh?” Danny asked as he shifted in his seat to face her fully. “Is that when you think we became friends?”

Mindy shrugged. “Well yeah. You don’t agree?”

“Not really. Not for me, at least.”

Tilting her head a fraction to the right, she formed her mouth to ask the question. Danny spoke before she could, averting his eyes to the empty space between them.

“How I remember the moment,” Danny began, “is with me sitting on this couch after one of the worst deliveries of my career. I don’t think I’d ever been that devastated or unsure of myself until that point and I was so mortified that I couldn’t leave the couch. I didn’t want to be seen by anyone. Then, of course, you came in.” He laughed a little to himself and when he looked up, Mindy had a tiny self-satisfied smile.

“You were clearly on your way out the door,” he continued. “I could tell because you had your hair down and your glasses were off. You looked like you were just stopping by to grab a snack for the road. I could feel your eyes on me, but you didn’t say anything. I’m pretty sure your silence had everything to do with the fight we had that day.”

“I think I remember that moment in the lounge,” Mindy said softly. “But for the life of me, I can’t remember what we were fighting about before then.”

“Me neither,” Danny shrugged. “I know it was over something stupid, which didn’t stop me from saying something way below the belt. That’s all I remember of it, though. Anyway, I know you were still really upset with me. You were totally silent as you went over to the snack machine. All I wanted was for you to hurry up, get your food and leave.”

“Oh, nice,” Mindy’s voice seethed with sarcasm.

“I was upset,” Danny reminded her with a laugh. “It wasn’t you. I just didn’t want you around in case I started crying or yelling or whatever, you know? I didn’t want you to see that. So I waited and I heard you get two snacks. I thought you were going to head out after that, but instead you took a seat next to me on the couch.” He noticed she was sitting in the same spot in almost an identical position as the one she held that day, which made him smile tenderly. “And I knew then that it killed you to sit next to me and restrain yourself from slapping me across the face. Actually, I thought you were gearing up to! Instead, you handed me a bag of my favorite trail mix and just turned on the TV. You didn’t say a word. You just sat with me. And then you reached over and patted my knee twice…and that was it. I knew then that any attempt to keep you at bay had officially failed. And in that moment I was so grateful that I had failed at pushing you away. I still am.”

He had never been this honest with her and the reality of that made him feel only slightly nauseous. When the feeling passed, he could sense a welcomed transition between them. Her silence might have been harrowing had she not been biting her bottom lip and actively fighting against the tears that threatened the corners of her eyes.

“Don’t cry about it, Min,” he teased, his voice just above a whisper. She barked a water-clogged laugh and rolled her eyes with easily detectable theatrics.

“Well, stop being so precious and go back to being a jerk, then.”

Danny shook his head and smiled. When she reached over to pat his knee he laid a hand over hers while propping his free arm against the back of the couch. As he rested his head against his balled fist he asked, “Alright, what’s the fifth stage?”

Mindy cleared her throat and looked down at her darkened phone. “Well, uh, that stage is apparently only for best friends.” She lifted her gaze slowly, but didn’t quite reach his eyes. That’s when he ducked his head just a little in order to get back into her line of vision.

“Okay, so…are you gonna read it or not?”

She simply stared at him for a moment, both unbelieving and entirely appreciative. After a while she flipped her phone over and used her free hand to turn the screen back on. The fact that she allowed him to continue holding her hand was not lost on him, nor was the flutter of excitement in his chest.

“So, the article brilliantly calls the final stage ‘frientimacy,’” she began to explain. “And that’s when we build unwavering trust. We confide in each other. We let the other person see all of us. There’s love there, you know?”

“Yeah,” Danny answered, unhesitant. “That’s us alright.”

“So I was right, right? This is pretty much us!”

Danny sighed and squeezed her hand lightly. There was a little trepidation to answer her honestly, but there was also a dangling conversation that commanded his reach.

“I think in order for it to truly be us, there’d have to be a sixth stage,” he finally replied.

Mindy questioned him with a silent downward slant of her eyebrows.

“I mean, frientimacy – was that the word? – is great, but… I don’t know, there has to be a stage where one friend is constantly seeking the other friend’s guidance, their approval. Where he often – far too often - has to distract himself so that he doesn’t spend the whole day thinking about her. What do you call the stage where a sizable portion of his happiness kind of thrives on her happiness? You’re the expert out of the two of us, Min. How do we refer to the intimacy beyond frientimacy?”

Danny wasn’t sure when his heart started to thud relentlessly against his chest, nor could he account for the moment that Mindy’s breath shallowed considerably. He was able to note, however, the ease in which they both steadily gravitated towards each other – her hands clutching the front of his scrubs as his hands landed in her hair – and sought the other’s lips with their own. He might have expected a kiss a little more frantic, but it was clear that they both needed to simply know how it felt to allow themselves to be this way with each other. After breathing her in slowly he pressed his lips more firmly against hers and felt an electric thrill when he felt her do the same. For a second it felt like a competition: who could get the message across more clearly? It seemed very typical for them to be in competition during their most cherished moment to date. Either way, he felt like a winner.

When he finally pulled back, he looked to Mindy for a response. Her hands were still clutching at his chest as she worked to even out her breath. After a while, she shrugged lazily.

“I don’t know what we’d call it,” she admitted with a smile. “It definitely deserves a name, I think. I just don’t know what to call it.”

He laughed only because he understood. It felt right, but it was still new. Of course it required some thought. Slowly, he leaned back against the arm rest and pulled her backwards so that she was reclining against his chest. After wrapping his arms around her shoulders he felt her relax against him with a contented sigh.

With a soft kiss to the crown of her head, he replied, “Well, let sit here and think about it for a while.”

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY LOVE!
> 
> I hope this story brings you a brief glimmer of joy, though you deserve far more. I truly love you. 
> 
> <3, Phunky


End file.
